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One thing I have reason to be thankful for; my pilfering propensities had almost entirely disappeared, for with the exception of an occasional roll from a baker's shop, or some unconsidered trifle of cheese or the dried fruit aforesaid, I never took what was not mine, and when I did, it was only under the pressure of great hunger.

Once I made a serious mistake which gave me a bitter pang, disappointment so keen that I feel the sting of it even now sometimes. I was ravenously hungry, and there seemed to be no possibility of getting anything to eat. So diving down into the shell-fish market beneath the main building of Billingsgate, I watched my opportunity, and filled the breast of my shirt with whelks from a mighty tubful. My booty secured, I hastened back to the gloomy tap-room, there to devour my prize, but was immediately confronted with the difficulty of extracting the whelks from their shells.

I had often seen it done by the men who kept whelk stalls in the streets, and it looked ridiculously easy. But I could not do it, and I was fain at last to smash the shells, no easy task either. Then clearing the mollusc from débris I tried to eat it, but it was quite impossible, it was tougher than gutta-percha, and I realised that my whelks were unboiled! These morsels require immense masticatory powers to deal with them at any time, but uncooked they would defy the jaws of a stone-crusher.